Will The Howard Years Ever End?

I'm begging you to make it stop!

“Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.” — John Howard, ABC Radio “AM”, 1995

“Hey Einstein, I’m on your side!” — Falco Lombardi, StarFox 64/Lylat Wars, 1997

It is odd, perhaps, to hate a man your entire life. Since infancy, I have desired to do harm to John Winston Howard. Now, sure, I was raised in a quasi-Manchurian Candidate situation, my brain rewired so that the theme to Good News Week would put me into a murderous fugue state, wherein I’d attempt to garrot the ex-PM with the pull string of his jogging trackies if I came within twelve feet of him. But that aside, I believe my abiding hatred for the man is natural, innate, and instinctual, an atavistic part of my cosmic self, so woven into my heart, soul, and mind that to extricate it would be an act of self-deletion: a kinda cosmic-crank-suicide.

I vividly remember my first complete play-through of Lylat Wars 64 (released a year into Howard’s first term), facing off against the wizened-ape-head of Andross in the game’s branching climax, willing myself to defeat him by imagining him as the then Prime Minister (kinda uncanny resemblance, tbf). It felt so good to make that hideous head explode, and end its wrinkly reign of terror. It felt so good to be free of this colossal monster that had kept me in a loop of barrel-rolls, near-misses, and exhaustingly protracted multiphase boss encounters for what felt like an eon (as 45-75 minutes can when you’re 6). It felt so good to set the Lylat system free of him, at last. 

But anyone who has played Star Fox Adventures knows that Andross comes back. You can’t be rid of him. He’s always there, lodged in your save file, drifting in space. Eternal. I do not need a Falco Lombardi to appear on my intercom and tell me what I’ve always known: Andross won.

Fox. FOX!?!? FOOOOOOOXXXXXXX!!!! 

There’s no escaping him. 

the last thing Kim Beazley saw before Howard devoured him in 1998

It is 2025 and I still have to see John Howard on my TV. When I was a teenager, if you asked me why I thought Howard would be popping up on telly in a sci-fi sounding year like “2025,” I’d have guessed/hoped it was due to a riot at his state funeral, or that the good folks at The Hague had finally done the honourable thing and catapulted him against a wall (kerrrr-SPLAT!). But no, here he is, sitting in an armchair dolling out election pointers, looking like a Sackville-Baggins, the loss of his iconic goggles somehow making him seem more like a creation of Weta Workshop than his past iterations, impossibly. 

All I hear in my head when he talks is the Kill Bill siren sound, but what I feel in my gut is the unavoidable truth that the “desiccated little coconut” won. The Howard Years are Eternal. His pitch for an unmoving stagnancy held, and as if in deference to his sour mediocrity, Australia decided to remain on the ouroborosian track he set us on nearly thirty years ago, like the world’s saddest Hot Wheel set at the world’s meanest rich kid’s house, painted an unflattering beige so as not to cause overexcitement. 

When I say the Howard Years are Eternal, I am speaking in Sepherothic hyperbole, which is, nonetheless, 100% accurate. There are the obvious examples: successive Governments, on both sides, continuing and/or maintaining  just about every one of Howard’s major policy decisions, drifts, and shifts, the most important of which being a baked in obsequiousness to Corpo and Seppo interests. That sits alongside a middle-management of the soul, which has infected just about aspect of Australian life.

Albanese is closer to Howard than he is to Whitlam, or even Hawke and Keating, and I think he would be chuffed (perhaps not even in secret) by the comparison to a man who is undeniably Australia’s most ‘successful’ Prime Minister, for better or worse (it’s worse).  

the surviving members of the ‘Pussy Posse’

Spools of unremarkable books, chat, and schools of thinking have been dedicated to churning over the legacy of Howard, with conclusions both obvious and tedious being drawn by all-comers. It boils down to the simple fact that he was a wormy cunt and a cutthroat, who would have skinned his mother and worn her face as a mask just to get a toehold on power. None of that is unique to Australia and/or Australian politics in particular. Indeed, the most unique thing about Howard is his longevity, his total victory, and the radioactive half-life of said total victory, which has spawned two-plus generations of unfathomable mutants, and counting, all in his image. 

But the Eternal Howard Years are not just a matter of politics, the tiny tick having burrowed himself particularly deep. Through his dark magic, Australia remains preserved in 2003-2006: a mosquito stuck, not in amber, but YoGo Dirt Dessert — gritty and gluggy, gleefully swatting away any attempts to free itself and fly forward into the future (2017). 

Just open a newspaper, dial into a radio station, or flick on the telly. The same as it ever was. Same names, same voices, same faces of 20-30 years ago, doing and saying the same things on the same interest’s behalf, as doggedly and drearily as they were back then. Let’s see what Gerard Henderson has to say, shall we? No sorry, I’m too busy listening to wattle-necked war criminal, Amanda Vanstone, wax lyrical about the efficacy of pedestrian crossings on ABCRN. Oh look, Ita Buttrose is being wheeled up to the courthouse like a mafia don to defend the integrity of Valium dependent WASPs the world over. Hey dad, I got you the new Dave Hughes DVD at JB Hi-Fi: it’s a solid hour of him standing in his 400 square ft polished granite kitchen, talking about the benefits of an unregulated American diet pill and looking like he’s replaced his teeth with giant Tic-Tacs. Hey, get in here quick! Shaun Micallef is back with a new jaunt where he interviews the guy from that panel show – no, the other one – about real estate in Potts Point! It’s my favourite thing to watch with both barrels of a shotgun stuffed fully in my drooling gob. 

Folks, we live in hell. Worse actually: The Black Lodge. I am Coop, Australia is Laura, and Howard is our merciless BOB. What year is this?

mfw I’m made to watch a Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction clip

Are you ready for The Return?

Peter Dutton is a low-rent Uruk-Hai cooked up in Howard’s slime pits 20 years ago to stand where he once stood and remind us that bald men are to be respected, no matter how rancid their vibes are. He, Albo, ScoMo, Turnbull, Abbott, Gillard, and yes, even Rudd, have all been variations of Li’l Johnny’s leitmotif. The same cruelty, self-perpetuating, giddily. I can’t see the melody changing any time soon, can you?

For obvious reasons, Paul Keating is seemingly the only Australian (barring Philip Adams) who holds a license that permits him to 1) recall John Howard and 2) call him a turd. The unwillingness of any other of our major public figures to ever stop and say “look, shit’s fukt cos Howard did this x years ago” is a large reason why his pernicious poltergeist has been permitted to haunt the national psyche for coming up on four decades, and why his exorcism, if it ever comes, will be protracted and torturous. That ahistoricism is important to Australia’s whole deal, of course, because if we ever actually stop and consider how we got here/anywhere the whole pack of cards would not only topple over but burst in flames, but, is it not too much to hope that someday there will be a proper public reckoning of this man’s legacy that will see its dark logic excluded from the decision-making that charts our fate, our past, our hopes, our dreams, and our fancies?

Look, I’m not so stupid as to hold my breath. Let’s be honest: two generations of dropkicks need to drop dead for even a whiff of this change to come down the snot-pipe. Things are very grim, and they’re about to get much grimmer. But every time I feel bereft of hope or willingness to ‘resist,’ any time I feel suicidal, I remind myself than John Winston Howard is still alive, and I’ve got to keep plugging along if I’m ever gonna dance on his grave in full Fox McCloud cosplay. 

Until then, to quote Slippy Toad, “enemy robot, dead ahead.” Lasers away.